Friday, February 4, 2011

In response to Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's fishing expedition in U. Va. email servers, the State Senate has voted to limit the powers to subpoena academic research. The Attorney General's investigation has been directed against former professor and climate researcher Michael Mann.

The sponsor of the legislation, Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, was quoted saying:

We have numerous legal issues in the commonwealth which requires the attention of the people’s lawyer, the Attorney General. We don’t need him sorting through the trash cans of our university professors in order to foment litigation.

Images (click to enlarge): Michigan storm total snowfall ending Feb. 2, 2011, from National Weather Service

The National Weather Service reports that a few daily snowfall records were set in western Michigan during the blizzard of February 1 and 2. However, the storm totals did not exceed the records set in the blizzard of 1978:

WITH THIS LATEST STORM...DAILY RECORDS WERE SET FOR FEBRUARY 1 ANDFEBRUARY 2...RESPECTIVELY. NO OTHER OFFICIAL RECORDS WERE BROKEN.HERE ARE THE NEW RECORDS THAT WERE SET:

THE BLIZZARD OF 1978 SET A RECORD ALL-TIME CALENDAR DAY SNOWFALLOF 16.1" IN GRAND RAPIDS ON JANUARY 26. EVEN THOUGH THIS EVENTRIVALED THAT BLIZZARD IN TERMS OF STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL...THE HIGHESTCALENDAR DAY SNOWFALL WITH THIS STORM IN GRAND RAPIDS IS11.1"...WHICH FALLS SHORT OF THE 1978 RECORD.

THE STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL WITH THE BLIZZARD OF 1978 WAS 19.2". THISWAS ACTUALLY A 3 DAY TOTAL FROM JANUARY 25 THROUGH JANUARY 27.THUS...THE STORM WAS LONGER IN DURATION THAN THIS STORM. WITH ASTORM TOTAL SNOWFALL OF 16.0" WITH THIS RECENT BLIZZARD...IT FALLS AFEW INCHES SHORT OF THE 1978 STORM. HOWEVER...IT IS VERY IMPRESSIVETHAT THIS RECENT STORM PRODUCED AN INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF SNOW IN ARELATIVELY SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME. IMPACTS TO COMMERCE WERE MORESEVERE DURING THE 1978 STORM...BUT THIS LATEST BLIZZARD MANAGED TOSHUT DOWN MANY BUSINESSES AND SCHOOLS FOR AT LEAST 2 DAYS. IT ALSOSTRANDED HUNDREDS OF MOTORISTS IN CHICAGO WITH WINDS UP TO 70 MPHRECORDED AT THE CHICAGO LAKEFRONT. THE HIGHEST RECORDED WIND GUST INGRAND RAPIDS WAS 49 MPH THE NIGHT OF FEBRUARY 1.

THE FOLLOWING LISTS INCLUDE THE TOP 3 ALL TIME CALENDAR DAY(MIDNIGHT TO MIDNIGHT) SNOWFALL MEASUREMENTS FOR GRANDRAPIDS...LANSING...AND MUSKEGON.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Images (click to enlarge): 24-hour and storm total snowfall ending Feb. 2, 2011 for southern Wisconsin, from National Weather Service

Special note for Tom Nelson fans: Check out the link he forgot to include.

The National Weather Service has reported that several Wisconsin locations observed top-5 snowfall amounts for 24, 48, or 72 hours in the blizzard ending yesterday:

SOUTHERN WISCONSIN WAS RECENTLY BOMBARDED WITH MULTIPLE STORMS THAT PRODUCED BETWEEN 15 TO 28 INCHES DURING A 72 HOUR PERIOD. MANY SITES SAW SNOWFALL RECORDS BROKEN DURING THIS PERIOD...FOR 24 HOUR...48 HOUR...AND 72 HOUR INCREMENTS. THE FOLLOWING TABLES NOTE THE SITES THAT REPORTED SNOWFALL AMOUNTS IN THE TOP FIVE SINCE OBSERVATIONS BEGAN. **THE BEGINNING YEAR IS HOW LONG DATA HAS BEEN COLLECTED FROM THE INDIVIDUAL SITE**

1. 16.3 inches on January 6-7, 19182. 16.0 inches on March 30–31, 19263. 15.0 inches on March 21–22, 19324. 14.3 inches on February 1-2, 20115. 13.8 inches on March 1–2, 19486. 12.9 inches on December 11–13, 19097. 12.5 inches on February 10–11, 19448. 12.3 inches on January 11–14, 19799. 12.0 inches on January 17–19, 194310. 11.5 inches on January 14–15, 1943

In Milwaukee, the Weather Service reports:

- The total snow amount that fell on Wednesday, February 2nd was 9.1 inches, a new daily record for this day for Milwaukee.

- 16.0 inches fell between 6 pm on Tuesday, February 1st and noon on Wednesday, February 2nd. This total is tied for fourth for any 24 hour period.

- 19.6 inches fell between noon on Monday, January 31st and noon, Wednesday, February 2nd. This total is fourth for any 48 hour period.

6 PM Update: Today's 6.6" at Chicago O'Hare is a new record for the date. The preliminary storm total is 20.2", and the season to date is 47.5". The record February snowfall was 27.8" in 1896, and the record winter amount (December-February) was 80.6" in 1978-1979. This season now ranks 11th. Chicago snowfall records began in 1884.

5 PM Update: As the heavy snow winds down, the National Weather Service is reporting a peak snowfall amount of 27" near Antioch, Illinois, with another 2-foot-plus amount (24.3") north of Glen Ellyn. In southern Wisconsin, locations near Kenosha (24") and Racine (23.5") were also in the 2-foot range. Here are the 20"+ reports as of 4 pm:

Original post:The massive storm system now moving through the Northeast has left snowfall amounts ranging up to 20" and ice amounts near 1" in some parts of the Midwest.

The snowfall on Tuesday, February 1, was a new all-time February calendar day record at Chicago, according to the National Weather Service:

A RECORD BREAKING 13.6 INCHES OF SNOW FELL AT CHICAGO OHARE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT YESTERDAY. THIS NOT ONLY BREAKS THE PREVIOUS RECORD OF 4.0 INCHES FOR THE DATE SET BACK ON FEBRUARY 1 1967...BUT ALSO ESTABLISHES A NEW ALL TIME RECORD DAILY SNOWFALL FOR THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY FOR CHICAGO. THE PREVIOUS CALENDAR DAY SNOWFALL RECORD FOR CHICAGO FOR FEBRUARY WAS 11.5 INCHES SET BACK ON FEBRUARY 18 1908.

The main reason for the excessive snowfall was the record-setting liquid precipitation:

A DAILY RECORD PRECIPTATION OF 0.74 INCH(ES) WAS SET AT CHICAGO-OHARE IL YESTERDAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 0.67 SET IN 1915.

As of this morning, here are some storm total ice and snowfall reports from the National Weather Service via the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (alphabetical by state):

The collapsing electrical system of Baghdad Washington, DC and its suburbs was reported to have over 10,000 customers without power tonight . . . in a rainstorm. Apparently the forecast of an ice storm, which has failed to materialize, was enough to knock the equivalent of a moderate size town off the grid. According to tbd.com:

More than 11,000 customers are out of power in Maryland and D.C. tonight, with the bulk of power outages in Montgomery County.

Pepco is reporting that 9,513 customers in Montgomery County are in the dark tonight.

And 1,802 customers are out of power in D.C.

This comes as Pepco announced Tuesday that it was sending hundreds of Pepco workers into the field to prevent power outages.

Customers and elected officials have been critical of the power company since Wednesday, when a snow storm hit the region and knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of customers in the area.

Some Pepco customers didn't have their power restored until Monday night.

The WaPo reports nearly all were restored after 2 hours, so that's OK. Who really needs electricity 24 hours a day?

In the next installment: excerpts from emails to the Montgomery County Council.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center reported yesterday that Arctic ice extent reached an all-time low for the month of January:

Arctic sea ice extent averaged over January 2011 was 13.55 million square kilometers (5.23 million square miles). This was the lowest January ice extent recorded since satellite records began in 1979. It was 50,000 square kilometers (19,300 square miles) below the record low of 13.60 million square kilometers (5.25 million square miles), set in 2006, and 1.27 million square kilometers (490,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average.

Ice extent in January 2011 remained unusually low in Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait (between southern Baffin Island and Labrador), and Davis Strait (between Baffin Island and Greenland). Normally, these areas freeze over by late November, but this year Hudson Bay did not completely freeze over until mid-January. The Labrador Sea remains largely ice-free.

The National Weather Service reports that the major storm sweeping through the Midwest has set an all-time daily snowfall record for February at Oklahoma City:

PRELIMINARY REPORTS INDICATE THAT 11.8 INCHES OF SNOWFALL HAS BEEN MEASURED TODAY AT WILL ROGERS WORLD AIRPORT IN OKLAHOMA CITY. THIS IS A NEW RECORD DAILY SNOWFALL...BREAKING THE OLD RECORD OF 5.5 INCHES WHICH WAS SET ON THIS DATE IN 1913.

TODAYS SNOWFALL IS ALSO A NEW DAILY RECORD AMOUNT FOR ANY FEBRUARY DATE...BREAKING THE PREVIOUS RECORD OF 6.5 INCHES WHICH OCCURRED ON FEBRUARY 7TH IN 1986.

THE MONTHLY RECORD SNOWFALL FOR OKLAHOMA CITY IS 12.9 INCHES...SET IN 1913. TODAYS AMOUNT OF 11.8 INCHES ALREADY PLACES FEBRUARY OF 2011 INTO THIRD PLACE ON THE MONTHLY RECORD LIST.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

As noted in the previous post, some areas of the Northeast U.S. have racked up impressive snowfall totals so far this winter, particularly in near-coastal portions of southern New England. Hartford, for example, set an all-time monthly snowfall record in January. Is this the harbinger of a cooling trend, as some alarmist ice-agers would claim? In fact, preliminary data for January from the National Climatic Data Center indicate that, for the U.S. as a whole, record high temperatures actually exceeded record low temperatures.

This is now the 10th month out of the last 13 since last January that heat records have exceeded cold ones. The ratio of high temperature records to low temperature records over that period is 2.18 to 1, and the cumulative excess of heat records is almost 7000.

Monday, January 31, 2011

As of January 29 (Saturday), meteorological winter was 2/3 over (30 days remaining until March 1). The seasonal snowfall amounts to date from the major East Coast National Weather Service reporting locations show that overall snowfall has been 83% above average across the region.

The top chart shows the total snowfall this season through January 29 (blue bars) compared to the climatological normal (green bars) for 26 stations from Caribou, Maine through Raleigh, North Carolina. The stations are arranged roughly from north to south. With the exception of the lake-effect snowfall at Syracuse (SYR), the greatest amounts relative to normal have been at near-coastal locations from southern New England through the Mid Atlantic. In fact, Caribou, Maine (CAR), the most northerly location, has a deficit of over 20" (second chart). The area with the most excess of snow ranges from Boston (BOS) to Philadelphia (PHL). Note that the interior location of Scranton (AVP) is the only other one besides Caribou with below-average snowfall.

Here's the full list of stations and snowfall amounts (inches) to date, compiled from individual National Weather Service daily climate reports: